On drums...

What was the most humiliating experience you've had, playing drums?

I don't even need to think about it. There have been a lot of not-so-great gigs, but the one that really stands out was back in high school. In exchange for letting me out of athletics one day a week for drum lessons, I was roped into playing drums for a guy who (I thought) was nerdy. He had written a jazzy version of the Our Father, and word came down that I was to set up my kit, in the middle of the school chapel, to accompany him while he sang and played on the pipe organ. He must have sung at the top of his lungs.

Me, facing the entire school, with brushes and the pipe organ - I was completely mortified.

I don't even know how I came to own brushes; they must have been delivered with the kit. Faded red rubber handles: I remember them well. Back then, I was petty certain that brushes never wore out.

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Gregory

Me - on a jam session in a night club, with the most ruined drumset I can imagine...
I really sounded AWFUL that night - no matter what I did...

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Goki - short from Goran

Let the good drums roll!!!

Easy.

Had to be around 1971. Playing at a high school post prom party which had its location changed at the eleventh hour due to an emergency.

The planned location was a well appointed stage, with a carpeted drum riser; no need to bring my rug, eh? The substitute location was on a well waxed linoleum tiled gymnasium floor.

I chased my kit far more than I played it.

After the first set, I found a guitar cord I could run through the legs of my stool and tie to a couple of kick drum t-rods, in an effort to at least stay within reach of it.

That was nearly 40 years ago, but I have never gone to a gig since without bring my drum rug, regardless of what I know about the stage set-up.

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Cliff

River City Trio

What if we did all have the same opinions?

That's sounds worse than any chasing gig I ever played, but I have chased and I have propped, and I can relate. If it doesn't stay still, you can always try shooting it.

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Gregory

A few months ago, I allowed myself to be coaxed into playing on a perfectly miserable kit, in a sort of back room of a restaurant where an open mic session takes place every Friday night. There was no throne, but there were some chairs. Since the local phone book only needs to be thick enough to inscribe about a eight hundred phone numbers, it won't elevate your tuchus much more than the thickness of a daily newpaper, so I found a cusion and folded it several times over, held it on the seat of a chair, and put my butt on it to keep it from springing back. It still wasn't high enough, but at least I was not under the snare. During every song, one fold or another would give out, so I was loosing altitude as we went along, and had to reestablish myself at each break between songs

The only thing worse than the kit was the band. I played three songs before I had had enough, and I got the nod and a wink from a couple of sixty year old ladies, so the evening wasn't a total loss.

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Gregory